Bad install

Question

One of my neices bought an old Acer computer that had windows 95 installed on it and a friend tried to install a copy of xp professional over the top. When the machine boots up, this message is displayed: Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \windows\system32\config\systemYou can attempt to repair this file by starting windows setup using the orginialSetup cd-rom:  Select 'r' at the first screen to start repair. It freezes at this point and does nothing more. I finally figured out how to get to safe mode and on all the options presented, when I click enter on any one of them, I'm only given the choice of starting with xp pro. After clicking enter, the computer reboots and displays the  above message. How would be the best way to purge the xp pro from the machine? Or could some one direct me to a place that could give me some guideance? The machine has a pentium ll processor-- 266mhz-- floppy a drive-- HD 4120mbmemory 64mb sd-ram

jwatt · Answer

That's not much memory for XP, probably below the minimum Microsoft recommends. The consensus about XP upgrade installs is that they are rarely successful. Microsoft specifically doesn't list Windows 95 as a system that will work with an "in-place" upgrade. If the machine can be booted from the XP CD, that's the place to start. The XP retail CDs contain a "compatibility checker" which might give a definitive answer as to whether the machine can support XP. If it does, you can delete the partition(s) on the hard drive, reformat it, and do a clean installation.

Jim

Windows General

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